FACTSHEET

Omar Today

Ongoing imprisonmentInstead of granting him freedom and rehabilitation, PM Stephen Harper ensured Omar was incarcerated in a maximum-security institution on his return to Canada. The government continues to meddle in the judicial process by issuing public statements which falsely label Omar as an unrepentant terrorist.

Based on good behaviour, Omar was reclassified as medium-security and moved to Bowden Correctional Institution where he has access to some rehabilitation programs in order to earn parole. In July 2014 the Alberta Court of Appeal ruled he must be transferred to a provincial facility, but Omar remains at Bowden.

Although the Government has denied media access to interview Omar, a recent media court challenge argues a constitutional breach of the public’s right to know.

Appeal against U.S. conviction
On November 8, 2013, Pentagon lawyer Sam Morison filed an appeal in Washington to have Omar Khadr’s Guantanamo conviction overturned since all evidence indicates that Omar did not commit any crimes. In fact, Omar Khadr was himself a victim of an internationally recognized war crime: while badly wounded and lying in a prone position, Omar was shot in the back by a U.S. Special Forces soldier.

Omar’s well-being
Omar is going blind from lack of treatment in Canadian detention. The U.S. attack in 2002 had left Omar blind in in his left eye and with shrapnel lodged in his right eye. He was not provided treatment, while in U.S. detention, to save his sight. Now the vision in his right eye is rapidly deteriorating and without treatment, permanent blindness is inevitable.

With support from a team of dedicated professors from King’s University College in Edmonton, Omar was working towards completion of his high school diploma. Due to his eye-condition he is no longer able to read and his studies have been put on hold. In spite of this major setback, his teachers speak highly of his positive disposition and academic abilities.

Strength of character
Despite the unspeakable abuse and hardship Omar has suffered, he has retained his dignity and is a positive and cheerful person who wishes to live a normal, productive life.

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In one of his letters to one of his many friends Omar wrote: “The light of goodness outshines shadows that might be. There are too many good things in this life (as hard as it might be) to worry or even care about the bad things. Things are what we make out of them. Prison can be a deprivation of freedom, or a time to enlighten ourselves. For me it is the latter.” (Dec., 2012)

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Omar’s supporters

Among those who advocate on Omar’s behalf that his capture and imprisonment are illegal are:

Archbishop Desmond Tutu spoke by telephone with Omar in July 2014. He said “It is unconscionable that Omar Khadr, following a travesty of a trial, where he was treated as an adult in a vicious kangaroo court, should be languishing in jail” and that “His own country Canada should be an accomplice in holding him in prison. This is an example of a horrible miscarriage of justice and that in a modern democratic state. [Omar] struck me as a very gentle and caring and courteous human being who does not belong where he is at present. The Canadian authorities would do their stature much good if they released him immediately.”

Senator Romeo Dallaire, an outspoken advocate for Omar’s rights as a former child soldier, said in a 2012 speech to the Senate, “Honourable senators, I am rising now to put on the record the case of the only child soldier prosecuted for war crimes.… It is my intention to speak about the nightmares this man has suffered, the failures of our government to protect him, and the immediate necessity for this government to sign the transfer agreement and bring Omar back home.”

Radhika Coomaraswamy, the UN’s Special Representative of the Secretary-General for Children in Armed Conflict, has defined Omar Khadr as a child soldier in a 2010 letter to the military commission in Guantanamo and verified he is entitled to rehabilitation and reintegration into society, not imprisonment.

Illegal capture and imprisonment
After his capture by U.S. forces, Omar should have been identified as a child soldier – he was fifteen and involved in a battle in a war zone – and provided with immediate protection as guaranteed by the UN Protocol to the Convention on the Rights of the Child on the Involvement of Children in Armed Conflict. Instead, he was illegally captured, detained, and tortured in Bagram prison until October 2002. He was then transferred to Guantanamo and held there for more than a decade – often in solitary confinement – until his delayed repatriation in September 2012 to a maximum-security institution in Canada.

The Canadian government’s complicityFollowing Omar’s capture by U.S. military, the Canadian government had the obligation to demand that Omar be treated according to the Geneva Conventions with special regard for his age and be immediately returned to Canada. Instead, the government, first the Liberal and then the Conservative, were complicit in the illegal treatment of Omar. Although he was a Canadian child, he was denied the protection of fundamental rights provided by the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. The Supreme Court of Canada and the U.S. Supreme Court have confirmed that the U.S. and Canada have violated Omar Khadr’s rights.

The UN Committee Against Torture has called on Canada to honour its legal obligation to ensure that Omar receives redress for human rights violations that the Canadian Supreme Court has ruled he experienced.

Illegitimate charges
In 2006 the U.S. charged Omar with five ex post facto offences. Not only have the accusations against him never been proven or heard by a regularly constituted court, the charges were not offences in 2002 under U.S. law and are still not offences under Canadian or International Law. As upheld in the recent Hamdan appeal, the military court in Guantanamo (or any legitimate court) is not permitted to apply law retroactively.

Invented status

Because Omar, as a juvenile civilian, could not be charged as an enemy combatant, the U.S. rewrote the laws of war and added the term unlawful to his status, so he would be “without combat immunity” and therefore stripped of all legal rights. According to the International Criminal Court he must receive the protections as either a civilian or a prisoner of war under the Geneva Conventions.

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Internationally maligned courtThe Guantanamo Military Commission was created to try Omar’s case because U.S. civilian and military courts refused to hear it. In 2008, the Federal Court of Canada revealed that the U.S. had given Canada their evidence for the case and asked if Omar Khadr could be tried in Canada. The Conservative government refused, saying, “that it was unlikely he would ever be convicted in Canada”. The Guantanamo military tribunal is neither a regularly constituted court nor a court intended to conduct fair trials. Under Common Article 3 of the Geneva Conventions, it is an offence to impose a sentence in the absence of a determination by a regularly-constituted court.

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Get-out-of-Guantanamo plea deal
In October 2010, Omar accepted the “get-out-of-Guantanamo plea deal” offered by his U.S. captors and pleaded guilty to the five expost facto charges. After maintaining his innocence while enduring eight years of extreme torture, Omar understood that pleading guilty was his only way out of Guantanamo.

I wrote a letter yesterday to lawyer, James Lockyer about Omar Khadr and today i am writing a letter to Omar Khadr. This lawyer got lots of experience in cases like this. If he was on this case it would be good. I also signed a petition concerning freedom for Omar Khadr.

I am so delighted to find this site. I have been privileged to have been corresponding with Omar since his return to Canada. I find him to be a sincere, gentle and earnest young man who just wants to have a chance at a decent life. He is no terrorist!! I know that for sure. Anyone wishing to do so can write him. Please do not do not be unkind to him. He has suffered enough.

Omar is in the Edmonton Instition which is a maximum security prison. It is hoped he can be moved to a medium sometime soon as his security risk has been changed from maximum to medium. He would love to receive letters and cards of support and encouragement. Please do not use gummed address labels or cards with glued photos as they will be returned.

I can understand the U.S.actions as Omar has been made one of the scapegoats for the atrocity that was 9-11 but what the hell are we doing as Canadians being complicite in this atrocious miscarriage of justice. Shame on you Prime Minister Harper

I agree with bob bear about the case of Mr. Khadr. Unfortunately Prime Minister Steve Harper and his government do not seem to understand shame yet. They have had ample indication that justice has been miscarried, yet they cannot bring themselves to admit to any error. Unfortunately this makes me, along with every Canadian, complicit in Mr. Khadr’s mistreatment. I cannot agree to this. Mr. Khadr does not deserve it.

Omar is an opportunity for the canadian government to show the world (and by that I mean the US) that we are onside with their naziesque “anti-terrorism” campaign. he is purely a scapegoat. only when harper is ousted will omar have any opportunity for freedom.

The atrocities committed by US forces(chicken-shits) and perpetuated by Canadian courts(cowards)…as horrendous as they are….cannot defeat Omar’s will. Amazing character and spirit. Soon to be free in the physical sense, but I think spiritually Omar is free as a bird. Best wishes and care from Texas.